York PC 112: We've Had The Debtbacle, And Everything Nasty Before it, So Now What Do We Do?

The first thing that we need to do as a people is stop abdicating the most basic office of our government - the Precinct Representative - and take back control of the local party organizations.

People think "I just can't do any more, I'm too tired and stressed-out." Or they think that all politics is a dirty game full of slimy people. That's because good people have abdicated their responsibility in our democracy by letting the most basic party office go mostly unfilled.

Simply-put, if only bad people go into politics, only bad people will be in politics.

What I find on the ground, being involved in the local party organization, is that you have a few dedicated individuals who are trying to fill the boots of what should be three or four times their number, at least on the Democratic side. That's the case here in DuPage County, at least. I can't speak to what's going on in other regions, but my guess is that you'll find a mix of people who support the status quo corporate agenda in opposition to a few dedicated people trying to do good for their fellow citizens.

We need to take these basic offices back. We need people to get back in and work at the local level for change - because one guy in the White House is going to get his behind handed to him if he has no allies behind him.

Precinct-level Representatives in aggregate can pull on the Party platform, filter information to the officers above them, elect the officers above them, and control the boots-on-the-ground efforts of the local parties. The more Precinct Reps there are working for good campaigns in our elections, the less those campaigns will be forced to depend on corporate campaign donations to hire out what currently non-existent Precinct Reps should be doing. That's right, you can have a direct effect on how dependent political candidates are on donations to get their message out. How?

You, and sometimes volunteers with you, go out walking door-to-door talking to the people in your precinct, letting them know who the candidates are. You hear their concerns and take them back to the campaigns. Believe me, people will value a person they see face-to-face who will listen to their concerns over someone in an ad on the TV that they can't talk to.

If you can't stand what's going on in Washington, contact your local Democratic Organization, and do some volunteering with them. Attend a few of their meetings and get a sense of who they are. If there isn't an appointed or elected representative in your precinct, consider taking on that position. If there is, offer to help the current Precinct Representative in your precinct.

Most precincts are maybe 100 to 200 households in size. Large ones could have up to a couple of thousand people, but they're not too large for one person to walk. The other Precinct Reps who've been at this for awhile will usually help you and explain how things work. Often, you can walk precincts together with another Rep. It is doable, and it is very valuable to the benefit of our society.

In order for the Grass Roots to be truly effective and put an end to this long slide we've been going down, we need a fully-grown root system. We need our fellow citizens to get in there and pitch with us.

Just going out and voting isn't enough. You can't just give Democracy a kiss and send it out the door and expect it to come home for you. You have to give it time, attention, and kindness if you want to feel the warmth of a solid and gracious society standing with you. Like anything else in life, you get out of your government what you put into it.

We can do this. The results of failing to do this are clear all around us, in empty houses and empty storefronts and restaurants, and in tired faces and pink slips skittering down Main Street when the cold winds blow. It's right there in the scent of cigar smoke and clinking champagne glasses coming out of the bright neon windows of those 1% mansions on sprawling grounds hidden from the rest of us by tall trees and heavy security.

We've all done wonders at the jobs the Capitalist Captains of Industry want us to do, but so much so that we've ignored the duties a functioning democracy requires of us, which is to be involved and informed.

The only way the Ship of State is going to sail Main Street's way, is if Main Street gets their hands on the ropes and tiller.

All the best, if you work for it,

Dan

York PC 112: Tea Partying Like It's 1954...

The Tea Party has an earlier analogue:

http://www.truth-out.org/tea-partying-its-1954/1312298621

All the best, if you vote for it,

Dan

York PC 112: ACLU seeks to uncover cell phone tracking by law enforcement

Look who's guarding your right to privacy now!

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/08/03/aclu-seeks-to-uncover-cell-phone-tracking-by-law-enforcement/

All the best, if you vote for it,

Dan

York PC 112: The Ed Show & Bill Maher On The Debtbacle...

See the video:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

All the best, if you vote for it,

Dan

York PC 112: "They Then Loaned To The Government What They No Longer Had To Pay In Taxes," or, "The Tale Of Two Lootings"...

Ever wonder why your parents or grandparents could have one person at home and one working, but you can't? Ever wonder why you're always tired and too stressed-out to do much but plop in front of the tube after work?
Ever wonder why you can't seem to get ahead, or are always falling further and further behind?

Yes, it's that blessed miracle of the new smaller government, brought to you by your Corporate Overlords, and boy, have they got a deal for YOU!


http://www.truth-out.org/tale-two-lootings/1312292014

All the best, if you see through the propaganda machine,

Dan

York PC 112: GOP Shuts Down The FAA So They Can Go Union-Busting...

Read it and weep, but be really careful flying this month:

http://www.truth-out.org/gop-holds-faa-hostage-over-anti-union-demands/1312398896

All the best, if you vote for it,

Dan

York PC 112: Protesters Invade Wall Street Over Debtbacle...

Check it out:




All the best, if you vote for it,

Dan

York PC 112: Seniors Hold "Knit-Ins" At New York Banks...

Seniors are knitting "security blankets" that say "Save Medicare" to give to Congress Members on recess.

Check it out: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/08/03/seniors-hold-knit-ins-protests-at-new-york-banks/

All the best,

Dan

York PC 112: From Truthout - "Ransom Paid," Or As I Call It, How A Faux-News Construct Hijacked The Middle Class...

There is no Excuse for this. There's not even an un-capitalized excuse for this.

First, read on here: http://www.truth-out.org/ransom-paid/1312207122

Clearly the economics on this turkey are going to be smelling like skunk down the road. Mark my words, it is going to stink to high Heaven.

I have to agree with Jon Stewart on this one, "you're not going to pin this excrement on us," meaning the American public. Watch this clip:

http://www.rawstory.com/rawreplay/2011/08/jon-stewart-debt-deal-the-democrats-got-hosed/

The Washington Democrats were warned of exactly the scenario that just got played out LAST DECEMBER.

Worse yet, the debt ceiling itself, the so-called source of the "crisis," is considered unconstitutional by most legal scholars:

http://www.truth-out.org/forget-compromise-debt-ceiling-unconstitutional/1312205856

Before Faux News hyped the Tea Party, they were a small group of billionaire-funded right-wing extremists most people hadn't ever heard of. Their recent "convention" was canceled for lack of attendance.  Their darling "Momma Grizzly" Sarah Palin had her movie debut to an empty theater in the most Republican county in California: http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2011/07/sarah-palin-movie-debuts-to-empty-theater-in-orange-county/241983/ , and very quickly left the big screen for Pay-Per-View: http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/palin-undefeated-tanks-heads-pay-per-view-193115807.html .

I am thoroughly disgusted with the whole mess.

Here's Thom Hartmann taking a look at the great Presidents and  World Leaders and how they stack up with "compromising:"




There are a lot of people who think that President Obama is somehow pulling a "chess-wizard" move here. Personally, I think that's putting lipstick in the toilet before flushing. To me, this is not a good deal for the working-class majority in this country.

We're going to have to live with it for now, but as it unfolds, it's going to shake up a lot of folk's worlds.

Maybe it will in time drive people to understand that we should be investing in the future with education, infrastructure, and innovation, instead of investing in carnage overseas because the people making money off that carnage put a turban on the Boogey Man.

The bottom line is, if working-class Americans don't have good-paying jobs, the big corporations are going to have to compete for a lower-rent market, and even worse, so are all the small businesses.

This is the wrong direction, America. It's not going to make things better in the long-term. It will at best drag out the nasty "jobless recovery" that is really not a recovery, and at not-so-best, cause another full-blown recession.

We could be doing better. We could be doing a LOT better.

I hope we decide to before we're left behind by the rest of the world.

Dan

Truthout: Forget Compromise: The Debt Ceiling Is Unconstitutional

http://www.truth-out.org/forget-compromise-debt-ceiling-unconstitutional/1312205856

Once again, the artficial "debt ceiling" crisis is being used as a tool to defraud people who have paid into Sociual Security and Medicare for years out of benefits they have already paid for.

All the best,

Dan

From Truthout.org: Hope for the Hell of It

This is one of the best lists of activist accomplishments and reasons not to surrender that I've seen in a decade:

http://www.truth-out.org/hope-care-and-feeding/1312210173

Read on, and take heart.

All the best,

Dan Stafford
York 112 PC

York PC 112: Page One: Inside The New York Times - A Documentary Film...

...that goes in-depth into the day-to-day operations of the New York Times.

Sourced from Google:

Page One: Inside the New York Times

Reviews - Trailer - Photos - IMDb

‎1hr 28min‎‎ - Rated R‎‎ - Documentary‎
Director: Andrew Rossi - Cast: David Carr - :

"Page One" unfolds over the course of 2010, one of the most tumultuous years for print journalism since the invention of the printing press, with online media continuing to reinvent the rules and some of the oldest print newspaper institutions in the country forced to close or drastically reduce their operations. Along the course of the year, director Rossi was given unprecedented access to the editorial process at "The New York Times."

 Notes from Dan:


My wife and I just saw this film at the Glenn Art Theater in downtown Glenn Ellyn. The film is excellent, and kept me interested all the way through. It raises several questions, most of which have yet to be answered. I strongly recommend seeing this film.


The largest question that the movie raises is whether or not large ol-media organizations such as the New York Times will be able to survive, and also whether it matters if they survive or not. There are several arguments on both sides, with very good points. 


Personally, I think the answer on whether it matters if these institutions survive lies somewhere between the extremes of letting them die and keeping them in print. I think the print edition is accessible to those who can't afford technology, or are unable to adapt to modern web technology. I also think that a billion bloggers still can't match the focused investigative depth that a full-blown newsroom of the Times' caliber is capable of. There are very few in online media who can come close to the access and full-time devotion to a story such institutions are capable of.


Of course, those arguments only hold true if such institutions decide to follow a given story, and if they verify that their sources are in-fact accurate and that trusted insiders aren't abusing the institution. Judith Miller and the run-up to the Iraq war come to mind. The cost of that particular debacle to U.S., Iraqi, and international society has been immense and horrific. 


Old media also can't effectively cover the full breadth of global news or match the flash-speed of an online story gone viral. It's like comparing a battery of brilliant spotlights to the flashes of lightning in a massive thunderstorm system. They just aren't the same thing. One is tightly-controlled and narrowly focused, the other is wide-ranging and intensely-fast, but also erratic and un-controlled, without duration and depth. 


Trust is an issue with both forms of media, explicitly in the case of internet stories, and implicitly in the case of corporate-owned (and likely corporate-controlled) monolithic old-media. After all, it is just as easy to twist truth in reporting by omission as it is by saying outright falsehoods, and both are dangerous things in an open society that is truly citizen-governed.


My personal leaning is to have as wide as possible scope of headline information so that I can choose what to follow in-depth myself. I think this "big-picture" view is indispensable, and that the past ten years have exposed many things that are deep internal threats to our democracy and way of life, and even more importantly, to our future survivability as a species.


If we were still operating in an era entirely dominated by large-scale monolithic one-way media, there are many things that the large corporations and extremely-wealthy would have kept hidden from the masses. Without the resources of those institutions, we would lose the deep investigative power of a fully-developed newsroom. In the end, I think it will be necessary to strip the old-media from corporate hands and merge it with the new-media flash-mob zeitgeist of global information.


The interesting thing is, it seems to me that varying forms of exactly that are starting to come into being. The old-media and the top-of-class new-media are coming up with their own versions of just such organizations. It's the financial structures that have yet to be figured out in the most obsessive-compulsive capitalist society ever to exist on Earth. Even the Ferenghi on Star Trek would have a hard time competing with modern American and trans-national corporations.


Today, however, and in the next few years to come, the story remains to be fully-written. There are multiple plots involved, and it boils down to the very large few and the very small many, and how they interact. I believe that if either fails to value and support the other sufficiently, the whole system will break down. 


Given the stories I'm seeing in all forms of media over the last few years, I think that most people in either paradigm are in for some seriously-hard-knock schooling on this point. I sincerely hope I'm wrong, and that things will find a way to mesh that everyone can live with.


All the best,


Dan

Detroit: The Long And Winding Road...To Recovery?

A fascinating look at the number 1 city in the nation for urban agriculture, and a story for the rest of us to watch.

http://www.truth-out.org/detroit-new-american-frontier/1311694023

All the best,

Dan

Exactly How The 2004 Ohio Presidential Election Was Stolen Revealed In Court

Read it for yourself:

http://www.truth-out.org/new-court-filing-reveals-how-2004-ohio-presidential-election-was-hacked/1311603015

All the best, if you vote for it...

Dan

Record Heat Engulfs Half The USA; Climate-Deniers Half-Baked And Headed For Toast...

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/07/23/record-breaking-heatwave-smothers-eastern-us/

When our mothers asked us if we were trying to heat the whole neighborhood leaving doors open in Winter, they weren't kidding.

Since the Climate-Deniers tend to be the same flat-Earth brain-wizzards that are holding up the debt ceiling, maybe the Earth will finally get a break in 2012.

Sweet breezes,

Dan

The Real Reason Our Economy Is Staying Tanked: Depressed Unions = Depressed Wages = Depressed Buying (Non-Credit Purchasing)

Take it from the Washington Post:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/corporate-americas-chokehold-on-wages/2011/07/19/gIQAL2ieOI_story.html

All the best,

Dan

York PC 112: Ardmore Bridge In Villa Park Construction To Start This Autumn...

...according to the Daily Herald. That's good news in my book.

http://www.dailyherald.com/article/20110721/news/707219943/

All the best,

Dan

York PC 112: Chicago Tribune Calls Empty Forecloures "Eyesores & Crime-Magnets"; I Call Them Opportunities To House The Homeless...

Here's the Trib article link:
http://link.chicagotribune.com/r/UX0Z1O/N419Z/4J6BL6/XO8JV/XBAGRS/LE/h?a=7&b=22&c=11

Doesn't it strike you as criminally insane that we have millions of vacant homes at the same time that millions of people are in "tent cities" or street curbs? What is wrong with this picture? Have we become so callous and heartless?

Why are we not seizing these empty homes via eminent domain and helping Habitat For Humanity and other such charities stretch their strapped budgets?

There are empty houses. There are homeless people. There are construction workers short on jobs.

It's a simple solution. The banks should be donating these homes to States and Charities to pay back their bail-outs and get their property tax payments off the balance sheets, but I guess they're just too greedy.

All the best,

Dan

The Superman 2050 Adventure...

...and an adventure it is.

The performance I attended was in Link's Hall at the corner of Sheffield and Clark in Wrigleyville. Have you ever tried parking in Wrigleyville?

Link's Hall is a classic old brick building in the middle of everything. It's was a sultry 95 degrees out, and people are walking, biking, driving, riding scooters and motorcycles, dining on sidewalk patios under party lights. It was lovely chaos in the streets, and I was extremely lucky to find side-lot parking for $5.00 per hour just two blocks away and ten minutes before show time.

Did I say Link's Hall was old? As in so old it was 85 degrees plus inside? I have to hand it to the performers, because this show is all pantomime dance!

That's right, eight people on a four-by-ten foot platform three feet up transport you right into a better world using only tights-clad bodies in motion and voice. The only prop was a single pair of glasses.

I was flatly and joyfully amazed. The energy and cleverness was superb. The contrast between stark stage setting and brilliant imagination was surreal.

The show is being done in partnership with the Midwest High-Speed Railroad Association. (http://www.midwesthsr.org) MHSR Spokesperson Madelein opened and closed the performance, to great applause on both ends.

This was the production taping of the show tonight. It will be available on DVD through Theater Unspeakable soon. Superman 2050 is touring the Midwest exclusively via passenger rail, and has dates all over the region scheduled. There will also be a performance upcoming at Second City.

Hats off to Superman 2050 for promoting a better world through superior dance!

All the best,

Dan

Midwest High Speed Rail Association: http://www.midwesthsr.org

Link's Hall: http://www.linkshall.org/index.shtml

Theater Unspeakable: http://un-speak-able.com/wp/ 
(Theater Unspeakable on Twitter:  http://twitter.com/2050Superman )


Second City: http://www.secondcity.com/

Superman: 2050